Tonight my friend Matthew called and after taking his turn with each member of my family on the phone he got to me. Matt had been engaged to my best friend but they broke it off - a sad, unecessesary break - but a break nonetheless. So when he got to me on the phone tonight he said three significant things. One, he is coming up to visit for a week in September. Two, make sure I introduce him to some good Christian girls. Three, they must be, and not necessarily in this order, under 5.5 feet, brown hair, early 20's, blue eyes perferrably, moral and sincere, funny but not stupid, outgoing but not boisterous, submissive not subordinate, happy not giddy and last but not to be confused with least, a Christian with vision.
When I finished laughing, which took quite a while, as what he is describing is close, if not the, model wife material. And, which is funnier, a replica of my best friend, his former fiancee. I laugh because I find myself doing this in my own life. S was Matt's first and only love, at 16, and he hasn't loved anyone since. Owen was my first and only love also at 16 and every guy I've met since than has been compared in my mind, to him. Sad phenomenom, but true. And so it is with sadness that I must confess to Matthew that there are no girls matching that description he thinks he wants around here, not because I couldn't find one who would fit everything to a t, but what he wants doesn't exist for him any longer.
And I wish to cry. Cry for generations of young people, myself, Mattew, S, you, everyone of our peers and our parents peers who have somehow broken off such a chunk of their hearts for a false seditive of comfort - idealism and idolitry. We've built such a picture of what we will find to love and we've forgotten somewhere along they way the purpose OF love. It's not hard to love that which we ideally want to love, but when it comes to loving something which doesn't fit in our description box, we choose instead to pass it along until something better, or something closer, comes along. We break the peices of our hearts smaller by holding on to that which can never be and do it willingly, all in the name of 'first love'. Oh that we could somehow return to the 'first love' we had in our first taste of Jesus. I would trade any memories of Owen, just to once again remember the first moment with Jesus.
In any case, matthew is coming to visit and I am so thrilled!
